A Hot Summer Season for Milwaukee's LGBTQ Sports

If you thought the Winter Olympics were pretty gay, Milwaukee LGBTQ summer sports are in the offing and it’s going to be a hot bat season, and then some.

After a successful recruitment event last summer, Cream City’s first LGBTQ rugby team, The Milwaukee Beer Barons Rugby Football Club, was founded within Saturday Softball Beer League (SSBL). Just weeks ago, it officially became an associate member of International Gay Rugby as its 72nd member. The club’s offerings begin Saturday, March 3 with an all-skill-levels “101” session and matches are scheduled with regional teams Columbus, Ohio; Madison, Wis.; Minneapolis; and St. Louis. Its ultimate goal is to play in the Bingham Cup Tournament in Amsterdam. Comparable to the gay softball World Series, the Bingham Cup is named after Mark Bingham, who perished on 9/11 as one of the heroic passengers who rushed the hijackers on Flight 93.

SSBL’s softball season begins in May and runs through July. SSBL is expecting 12-13 teams with team registration fees as low as $100. This is also the year of the 40th Dairyland Classic, the league’s annual international tournament. It takes place Oct. 5-7. SSBL is planning special attractions like an SSBL History display. To celebrate this special anniversary, the goal is to host 40 teams, a significant increase over past years.

The Big Gay 5K Run/Walk fundraising event for the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) takes place Thursday, June 7. Organized by the Milwaukee Gay Sports Network (MGSN), plans are to expand the Veterans Park event to include Milwaukee’s greater sport’s family. A PrideFest Pride Sports Area is in the planning stages and hopes are to collaborate with the Brewers and Admirals organizations to expose people to health and wellness through sports and to generate interest in LGBTQ sports. SSBL and MGSN will also participate in the Pride Parade.

Aurora Health Care-sponsored Brewers Pride Night has now been scheduled for a Thursday, June 21 game against the St. Louis Cardinals (their Pride Night takes place in August).

Launched last year, SSBL’s Kickball takes place Thursday nights, July through August.

Another season highlight is the return of the Ozabooboo Golf Classic. Named after SSBL and NAGAAA Hall of Famer Arturo Olazabal, the fundraiser supports the Cream City Foundation. The Tournament takes place on Saturday, Aug. 11.

Autumn softball, Fall Ball, begins after Labor Day. Teams are randomly drafted to break down barriers between groups and to allow folks to meet others within the community they might not otherwise get to know.

Last year, SSBL and MGSN Miller Park concession volunteers worked 42 games, raised $72,000, and were named Nonprofit Group of 2017. This year, they’ve committed to work every game. The program raises funds for the league and players with 75% dispersed to individual volunteers as reimbursement for sport-relevant costs, like players’ fees, tobacco cessation products and sports-relevant travel. It benefits the league by involving those who might not otherwise be able to participate.

The season culminates with “Halloween at Sea,” a seven-day Caribbean cruise, open to “all LGBTQ Cruisers and Allies” and features our own Dear Ruthie as MC. That sounds like a cruise to remember.

More information on SSBL and MGSN may be found on the groups’ social media sites.

Since returning to Milwaukee in the early 1990s, Paul Masterson has been a contributing writer to Milwaukee’s LGBTQ and mainstream press. His beat spans the spectrum from athletics to the arts and from heath, politics and history to religion.

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